the nightmare realms

HIATUS!

In an ideal world, Noctis wouldn’t be a skilled warrior. In an ideal world, he wouldn’t have to be. It wasn’t an ideal world though. He was reminded of that almost every second of every day. If it was, his father and Luna would be alive. Ignis would still have his sight and Noctis wouldn’t have to die to correct mistakes made thousands of years before he was born.

“Yeah, okay.”

He’d always hated the throne room back home, especially when he’d been younger. Whenever he was in it, he was dealing with the King, not his father. It meant that his father was too busy to spend time with him. This was different though. It wasn’t his father on the throne, it was Dream.

“That’s reassuring. It wouldn’t be very hospitable if you did want to hurt me.” He was right though – Noctis didn’t belong there. “Would you believe me if I said I was sucked into a magical crystal? I guess my body is still there, absorbing it’s magic until I’m ready for what comes next.”

Perhaps it was selfish of him, but he wasn’t in any rush to return. He knew what needed to be done, but he wasn’t ready to die.

“I have a big fight up ahead. It’s not one I can back out of…at least not without condemning the world to ruin.”

Dream’s eyes gleamed. “It is my function to remove that which does not belong in my realm,” he said. “As mortals say... it is not personal.”

As Noctis described the manner of his arrival, the Endless’ frown deepened. This was indeed unusual, but perhaps not so pressing a concern. Whatever was putting Noctis to sleep seemed a self-contained magic, and it did not seem to be affecting the Dreaming in any way aside from the prince’s presence.

“I suppose... for now, you may stay,” Dream said. “Do not disturb the other dreamers, but the paths you trod as a child all remain. You may rest in Fiddler’s Green until you are ready to meet your destiny.”

He gestured, and in lieu of the throne room’s exit, a portal to the golden path appeared. It was a road that branched to all major realms of the Dreaming. “You will know when to step off,” Dream said. “Simply think of the Green, and the path will open.”

“My life mattered to him.” Noctis knew he didn’t know Morpheus as well as the Corinthian did, but he couldn’t believe he was a cold as the nightmare was making him out to be.

“He had no choice but to kill me. I understand that. He didn’t have to let me stay here as a dream though and before that…before that, he found me bleeding out in the street. He could have just left me there, but he didn’t. It might have been easier for him if he had.”

Admittedly Dream hadn’t known that he was a vortex at that point, but he still could have just walked by without involving himself in mortal affairs.

“Are you talking from experience? Were you and him ever…you know?” Noctis wasn’t even sure he’d categorise what they had as a relationship. Noctis was pretty infatuated, but it was still early days and he hadn’t actually been in a proper relationship before so he didn’t have a point of comparison.

“What does he do?”

The Corinthian inclined his head. He had no desire to argue with the newly-made dream; he would find out what Dream was really like, or he wouldn’t. It was all the same to the nightmare.

At Noctis’ question, however, the nightmare laughed out loud. “No,” he said. “Not at all.” What the Corinthian felt for their creator was quite the opposite of love. There was only one thing that he desired from the gilded cage that was the Dreaming, and it was his freedom.

The Corinthian shrugged. “Ask him yourself,” he said. “Ask him what happened to Nada, and ask him what he’s done to the lovers that’ve angered him.”

He finished the sketch just as the poor nightmare on the shore dissolved into foam, its fanged mouth crying out in anguish as it crashed into the surf. He closed the book with a definitive thud, and stood. 

"Gotta get back to work,” he said, nodding at the dream. “Take care of yourself, Noct.”

The Corinthian walked off, picking a path that led to the nightmare realms and soon disappeared from sight.

Dream of the Endless || The Corinthian A dual-muse Sandman RP blog written by Bee @calculatingthestars

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